A real home made chicken curry

Hello my dear ones,

seems like autumn is coming in slowly steps. Sun is going down ealier again and temperatures too.
I really like that time of the year and most of all you get a craving for nice hot meals. So maybe a curry again?

Well, there are many ways to cook a curry in India. Depending on the region every household has it´s own style.

I got this recipe from friends in India and want to share it with you. It´s more about the combination of spices than using a lot of oil and cream.

What I like about this curry is that you can use different types of meat. Though I usually prefer chicken breast.
But when I was in India, I realised that indians prefer bone pieces in their curry and I also tasted the difference, since the bones give more flavour to the curry.
But you can mix it of course too using breast pieces and bone pieces.

To start cooking an indian curry you always need ginger, garlic and onions and once the onions are golden brown you start to add the other spices to get the real masala.
It´s possible to just add some garam masala which is a complex mixture of indian spices and adds a nice aromatic taste to the curry. But that´s not the way indians cook. :)

So if you like a herbal note that you can add some coriander, for a stronger taste you use cumin and to add some sweetness you use some cinnamon for example.  I used all these ingrediants and it tastes fantastic.

As soon as the spices are in the pay, the aromatic oils are coming out and evolve their flavour. This wouldn´t happen if you add the spices to the tomatoes only.

After the tomatoes are added, they need to simmer on middle flame until it becomes thick. Only then the turmeric will be added which gives the dish a earthy note again.

As soon as the oil seperates from the tomatoes it´s about time to add the chicken with some water and a little sugar. Then it will be cooked for around 40 minutes. 

At the end we add some freshly chopped coriander and that´s it. Maybe it´s not the kind of curry you get here in a restaurant but believe me, it´s super tasty. 

Ingredients: 

• 3 tablespoons yogurt
• 2 tablespoons buttermilk 
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 2 teaspoon garam masala
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 8-10 chicken drumsticks and thighs, (it´s often skinned)
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 3 onions, finely chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• large piece of ginger- thumb size, finely chopped (alternative I use ginger-garlic paste)
• 2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 3 teaspoon garam masala
• 2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon or a cinnamon stick
• 4 cardamom pods
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 750g fresh tomatoes, chopped (canned tomatoes are also fine) 
• 1 small red chili, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• Salt to taste
• fresh coriander, chopped

Method: 

1. The meat gets a marination and for this you mix yogurt, buttermilk,1 teaspoon turmeric, 2 teaspoon garam masala, 1 teaspoon coriander, 1 teaspoon cumin. Put the chicken in a big bowl and prick the pieces with a knife. Pour the marinade over the chicken and make sure the pieces are nicely covered. Put it in a fridge over night. If you´re short of time even 2 to 4 hours of marinating is ok. 
2. Heat il in a pan, add the onion, garlic, ginger and stir well until transparent. Add the 2 teaspoon garam masala, 2 teaspoon coriander, 2 teaspoon cumin, cardamom and cinnamon. Stir until the onion mixture is golden and caramelized and then add the tomato paste and the chopped tomatoes. Mix it well and let it simmer until the oils begin to separate. Then add the chili, turmeric and salt and cook for another few minutes. Now finally add the chicken but not the marinade.
3. Let it all cook for a few minutes and add a cup of water so that the pieces are covered. Let it simmer for 40-45 minutes and add the marinade to the mixture 15 minutes before the end of the cooking time. Make sure the chicken is cooked to the bone and the gravy should be thick. Garnish with freshly chopped coriander and you´re done. 

Your SunShine

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4 weeks in India, my conclusion

4 weeks in India, that sounds long. But it wasn´t at all and the farewell was very difficult for me, most of all from my friends of course.
I´m still missing the colours, the smell and sounds, the crowded streets and the food! Oh how I miss the food!!

The stay was full packed with various impressions. Fascinating, exciting, breath taking, beautiful, overwhelming.
I actually had no bad experiences, apart from the Hyderabad trip, which was a bit disappointing.

I never felt unsafe or have been in any dangerous situation. I guess being always accompanied by indians was quite helpful and maybe also my height was, I´m 6  feet tall. ;)
People have always been nice and kind to me, most of all curious but never really importunate.

My biggest concern was the heat. I´m not a summer person at all and 25° C are absolutely enough for me. So how should I survive the tropical heat in south India then?????
Well, somehow I did. I guess after a while I got simply used to be fully drenched already at 11 am. And I wasn´t alone with that problem. ;)

I already told you about my primary experiences in my reports. Now I will just give you some more facts and practical advices.

In total I travelled around 4100 km (2548 miles)

• Thereof 2280 km by bus and 1800 km by train. 
• My travel expenses in India added up to 600,- Euro. It´s absolutely possible to travel significantly more favourable but for me at least the accomodation should have some good standards and comfort. So I ended up between 800 & 1200 Rupees (10 - 15 Euro) per night.
• The most expensive food (Mutton fry & fried rice with various meat) was 560 Rupees (7,30 Eur)  for 2 people, 2 bottles of water included. That was in Bangalore.
• The most favorable food must

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Hyderabad - Never rely on someone else... India- part 5

The last destination should have been Hyderabad then.
Expectations were high of course. Golconda fort...Charminar....
And it was high time to meet Lidia again after 3 weeks, since she was staying in Hyderabad all the time... So I was really looking forward to that trip.

Again we organised bus tickets to Hyderabad and left on a friday evening. The bus was early again and just dropped us to another bus stop. There it looked like each and every travel agency has their office there and hundreds of busses were trying to find a parking lot, to turn around and to get all their passengers inside the busses.
It was so crowded and busy.. it was more interesting than watching a movie. At least for me.
We got seats infront of bus company.

Parveen Travels 

And we had to wait. At least  for about 1 and a half hours I guess. But it wasn´t boring at all.
As I mentioned before, it was so busy there, people running around, the bus drivers were trying to reverse, others were trying to help them.. shouting at other bus drivers and so on.

Of course I was also an attraction for some people there and so time was almost flying. The only disturbing thing was the "bubbles-man". He was running around and selling.. guess? Right.. Bubbles.
Ok.. his right of course. But listening to him for more than one hour was a bit tiring: "Bubbles....bubbles....bubbles...bubbles...!!"

But finally the wait was over and a little boy was escorting us to our bus. 10 minutes walk away.
It was around 9.30 pm when we left that bus station just to stop after 1 km at a corner to load some washing machine and fridges.. I guess I also saw some furniture for bathrooms. Everything was stored into the luggage hold on the side, there must have been enough space because Indians love to take their baggage into the bus itself. ;)
Anyways.. we here in Germany use forwarders for transports like this one.. but.. this is India. :D

Everything into the bus....

But no hurry please.. ;)

Finally... 

I still remember when Shree said: "Don´t worry.. the journey will be pleasent. It´s almost only Highway to Hyd."  Hahaha.. well, I wasn´t worried at all. Why should I? Every journey we made went smooth and easy, I was used to the long bus trips already. But I had to laugh when I woke up in the middle of the night. The bus driver was using the horn and almost full breaking. I looked out of the window and only saw fields around ... Highway?  I see. Indian Highway. Or a shortcut? ;)

We reached Hyderabad at 7.50 am. At one of the first stops a young student left the bus. His parents were already waiting for him with a cart and then the unloading took place. They were pretty happy to see washing machine. :)
When we left the bus it was pretty cool. After almost 4 weeks in India even I started to feel cold at 12 degrees...
After a few calls to our contact there and a conversation with an auto wallah, he took us to a place where we should get picked up from.

This must have been the oldest and slowest auto in whole India.... 8 km in it.. and it was never ending. When there was a hill we almost stopped.. Sometimes I thought I should offer my help to push it a little. :P
Our mood wasn´t the best, Shree was a bit ill and had almost no voice after the Kerala trip plus we were both tired.

view from our balcony

At the meeting point we called Lidia´s friend again and she was talking in the slowest english to me ever. It was like: "Driveeeeeeeeer wiiiiiilllll coooooooooome iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin 5 minutes. Caaaaaaaaar has reeeeeed colouuuuuuuuuuuuur."
I guess she didn´t expect me to talk and understand proper english.  Anyways... we got picked up from a driver and he dropped us to a service apartment in Jubilee Hills where we stayed for one night only since we already had booked our return tickets for sunday evening.
We fixed a time with Lidia and her friends to pick us up and used the time for taking a small nap and to freshen up.

It was nice to meet Lidia then again and her friends. They took us to an indo-chinese restaurant for lunch first. Well, I wasn´t to happy with the food. The restaurant was a bit up market which was a nice experience too but I didn´t like the food. :(
Nevertheless I don´t complain. We had a good time with Lidia´s friends, made plans for the next day and then they dropped us at Shilparam, an arts and crafts village. For more information click here.  Entrance fee was 40 rupees and then we were strolling around.



It was quite nice there although of course it was a tourist spot and all the sellers were running behind us. I was interested in some bags and that guy offered them for 500 rupees. But I acted like I wasn´t interested anymore and left his shop.

Each time when he saw me from far then, he called for me and offered a lower price. I was laughing already and told him for 200 rupees I would take them. He didn´t agree and asked for 350 rupees. I denied.
After the a couple of shops I was around 50 away and again he called me. "Madaaaam, madaaaaam... 200..."
I was laughing and he had to giggle too and so I went to his shop again and bought some bags.
He was like: "You´re my first customer today and so I wanted to sell you something."
haha.. lucky me.

We spent around  2 and a half hours there before we left and returned to our apartment and another 30 minutes later Lidia got picked up.
Shree and me had a nice dinner and luckily I was able to meet another friend whom I met online 2 years ago.
Vrinda was able to drop in for half an hour and it was really nice to meet her in person. :)

Next morning it was said that we get picked up around 9.30 am.
Well.. from then on the day was spoilt. I don´t want to blame anyone, but why to offer something to me and making promises but not keeping it?? All I can say is.. we should have planned everything on our own as we did always before.

This way we wasted a lot of time.. waiting for someone who didn´t show up, even after many phone calls and attempts to figure out something else. We were disappointed and I wasn´t in mood for any solution anymore.
So we checked out at around 12:30 pm and were looking for an auto then, which at least would take us to Golkonda Fort which was the closest to us.
We had to walk quite a while since all the auto wallahs were asking for horrific prices and that didn´t cheer our moods at all.
But finally we found one decent guy who offered us to go on meter. He would take us to Golkonda Fort for a while and then drop us to our bus station which was around 15 to 20 km away.

At Golkonda Fort the queue for the tickets were sooooo long, we would have waited for at least 1 hour and you need to spend some time inside too. But so much time we hadn´t left.
That´s why  I was just able to take some pictures from outside ..

Golkonda Fort 

Entrance queue 

Outside were some small shops and I took the opportunity to buy a few more souvenirs then. I needed something to cheer my mood. ;) I´m just a woman and shopping always helps.. right?

I would have loved to go to the Charminar but it was too far away in the opposite direction and the auto wallah said that there is too much traffic because it was also a holiday.
Since we had no idea how far our bus stop is away, how much traffic there will be and how easliy we will find our point of departure.. we left the Fort and the auto wallah took us to the bus stop.

street market 

It was quite a distance as I mentioned before but traffic was less in that direction and so we reached within 45 minutes or so. We had to search there a bit but finally we found the right place.
Unfortunetaly it wasn´t a shopping area or something like that. Just a few stores and restaurants... that´s it.
At least we had lunch there and then we had to wait for around 4 hours. Yes.. 4! Well almost 5 because the bus was delayed....
So you can imagine our mood. We were both a bit pissed off and Shree was blaming himself for all this, which wasn´t his fault at all. . .. and I want to appologise to Shree again for my bad moods there. ;)
Sorry ji! :)

But well... why to complain? There will be a next time and a proper plan from our side ;)
Nevertheless we were happy when the bus finally arrived and we could go back to good old Chennai....

View from our bus stop

busy kid.. first cleaning the dishes... 

and then cutting onions.. :) faster than any chef. 

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Chennai - Slowly I become a local girl ;) - India-part 4

Chennai became more and more familiar to me. I knew how to get to the local train station, where the important shops were and how to deal with the chaotic traffic around central station. The guy with the fruit stall infront of our hotel recognized me already, the shop keepers weren´t too surprised anymore to see me.. so slowly I became kind of a local girl.

Compared to Kerala, Chennai is polluted, loud, crowded and sticky. The heat was a challange for me always but somehow I beared it and got used to it. Well.. at least a little. ;)

But Chennai isn´t so bad as many reports are telling. Yes, it´s not the cleanest city and it doesn´t have too many attraction poles for tourists either. But it treated me well and I started to like it.

One of the first places where Shree took me, was the Shopping mall Express Avenue. Well, he thought I might feel super comfortable there, like home because it´s just like every usual western shopping mall.
It was nice indeed and the thing I enjoyed the most was the A/C ;)  and an iced coffee.

Coffee time :) 

But I haven´t come to India to just spend time in western shopping malls, because.. I´m used to them. ;)
I was more interested in markets, small stores and shops.

Nevertheless it was interesting to see the indian youngsters there, running around in their western clothes. That was the place I saw girls in short skirts for the first time in India. Their behaviour was different than what I had experienced so far, more western... I wouldn´t say modern. But also a bit snobbish..
Many were just talking in english with eachother, just like that would show their education and living standards. I was surprised about that.
Yes, I know that Indians aren´t talking in one language only.. and that there are many more languages than Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam.. etc..
But somehow I had the feeling that they talked a bit louder when I was close to them. Maybe to impress the western Madam??
Well.. let me tell you. That´s not necessary at all ;))

Shy guys.. :P 

In that shopping mall also a cinema was included and so we used that oportunity to watch a movie. I always wanted to go into a theater in India.
Lucky as usual we picked the Hindi movie because it had english subtitles and so we ended up watching "Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola", which I enjoyed a lot.

I had a lot of fun even while ordering the soft drinks and popcorn because the guys which were working there were just starring at me and when I started the counter attack with my camera, they became shy.;)
Oh and never ever before I have seen so many commercials for jewelery like their in cinema. It was never ending and even jewelery for children is a huge thing there. I´m not talking about Helllo Kitty plastic stuff.. no.. real heavy gold .. Guess birthday gifts are an expensive thing in India. ;)

Lunch 

At one floor was a huge food court and we also had lunch there once. Rice noodles with chicken and rasam (explanation here). A bit spicy but once you get used to it it´s really tasty.
Though not the best food I had in India ;)


We strolled around there and here you can see some of the pics:

Bling, bling, bling :))

We also made a guided city tour, which wasn´t too exciting but still a good amusement.Our hotel was surrounded by travel agencies and one day a guy just bumped into us and asked us if we would like to make a tour. We agreed and fixed it for the next day. That guide made sure that I felt comfortable and even when there was a temple where I wasn´t allowed in, he showed us some shopping stores where I could spend some time.
I don´t know if he got a share from that store but I don´t care actually. He did a good job.

First stopp was Marina beach which is quite famous since it´s a huge beach area with stalls and people like to spend time there. It´s pretty crowded and not too clean, but that doens´t stop people from walking around, riding horses or just strolling along the stalls.

                                                                       

It was around 10 or 11 am and already quite crowded everywhere. 

The people there were busy already, preparing their goods and the food items to get ready to sell it.  

 Some people of our tour group.

As usual it was really hot.
So the windy beach was a good chance to cool down a bit. If there wouldn´t have been those guys who were begging you to buy something or asking you to go for a horse ride.
But well, it´s their job so you have to bear with it.

When I saw that horses I felt bad for them since they were so gaunt. 

There were many stalls with shells but their prices were too much. But then one guy came to us with his bags full of shells.
We choosed a nice one for me and the price of 350 Rupees ( 4,90 Euro/ 6,40 USD) got fixed soon.

Something I really enjoyed was the fresh fish which was available there. 

Just choose a piece and they will fry it infront of you and they had been so yummie.. 

Just too good. :))

We also went there again once in the evenings and had a plate which costs 65 Rupees. (90 Euro cent/ 1,20 USD) 

What a good and cheap snack!   

 One of our next stops was the Shiva temple.

No matter if I already had seen many of the south Indian Temples.. I was and am still fascinated by that Gopurams.  

Since I wasn´t allowed to enter it, because I´m not a Hindu, I just looked around a bit. Some children tried to sell their stuff and even offered us cotton swabs. Well, you never known when you need to clean your ears next, right?
You get everything everywhere in India. ;)))
Before I felt bored, the guide brought us to a clothes store. I bought some material and since it was a goverment shop, the prices were very moderate. Even the other people of our tour agreed that the price was really good. They must know.. ;)

street infront of the Temple

Time for a coconut :) 

The Shree Rama Krishna Temple - Mandir of Swami Vivekananda was our next stop and it looks really beautiful. Don´t you agree? 

The people inside were praying and meditating so it was very peaceful and quite. A every special moment unfortunately not too long for us.
I would have loved to spend some more time there.

We also visited the snake park in Chennai. Well.. I never saw so many artificial aligators in my life before ;P
I haven´t taken any pictures there because I´m not a a big fan of reptiles at all.

And the last stop was the Chennai Government Museum. Since the entrance fee for foreigners were much higher again than for Indians, I refused to visit it. ;)  I´m anyways not a big museum goer and the others were back so fast that I doubt it was enough time to see everything.
But the area was nice and calm and I enjoyed the breeze while we were sitting on a bench infront of it.

Museum

Our tour bus

That was already the end of our small Chennai tour and it was high time for lunch. Well, a late lunch but one of the best ever, thanks to the guides recommendation:

Rice with different gravies, spinach and corn served on a banana leaf

This was another dream come true moment when they served this lunch and Shree was happy that he could fulfil me that dream. I´m so easy to please, right? ;))
But I´m a food lover and indian food is my weakness....

As I mentioned, we also went to the beach in the evenings...sunset, cool breeze, good food....and....lot´s of people. Some of them even asked me to take a picture with them. It felt weird but I´m a nice girl, so... smile :)
Maybe I could use it next time to make some money. 50 Rupees per picture? ;)

Chennai beach in the evening and other impressions:

 

Chennai University

while having some fish, they were sitting next to me :))

Skywalk shopping mall 

constructions going on 

Cow ahead

Mirch Pakoda

  

Local train, always crowded

     

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